Trading activities in the Nigerian equities market closed positively on Wednesday as the bargain hunting in the shares of Dangote Cement which gained 1.9% underpinned market performance.
Consequently, the All-Share Index (ASI) notched a 0.23% gain to close at 54,427.05 basis points. Similarly, aggregate valuation of equities investment at the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) advanced by N69 billion profit to close the session at N29.645 trillion. Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date gains printed +2.2% and +6.2%, respectively.
Analysing by sectors, the Industrial Goods (+0.9%) and Banking (+0.4%) indices recorded gains, while the Consumer Goods (-0.1%) index declined. The Insurance and Oil & Gas indices closed flat.
However, the total volume traded declined by 24.2% to 151.58 million units, valued at GN1.81 billion, and exchanged in 2,974 deals.
UNIVINSURE was the most traded stock by volume at 20.04 million units, while GTCO was the most traded stock by value at N427.74 million.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative following emergence of 23 declining securities relative to 11 gainers.
Trading data obtained from the NGX indicated that Tripple G had the highest propositional gain of 9.52% equivalent to N0.10k to close the mid-week session at N1.15 per share.
INTENGINS followed with 9.40% gain or N0.11k upward movement in its share price to close at N1.28% per share, while JAPAUL GOLD followed with 3.45% rise in share price to close the day at N0.30k per share. This indicate that the top spots on the gainers’ chart are occupied by penny stocks.
Conversely, TRANSEXPR led other decliners as it nosedived by 9.76% to close the session at N0.74k per share. TRANSCORP followed suit with 7.75% decline to settle at N1.26k per share while COURTVILLE occupied the third place on the chart with its 6% decline to close the day at N0.47k per share.
Experts in the market have projected that in the short term, mixed sentiments and trend will continue in the market on positioning and profit taking as portfolio rebalancing in the midst of impressive corporate earnings and expected NTB primary market, amidst the release of more audited earnings and anxiety over the election uncertainty.
They added that any pullback at this point may add more strength to upside potential of stocks in the local bourse.
As such, they counsel that investors should take advantage of price correction, while also paying keen attention to trends and events across the globe and domestically.
